Anglican Catholicism and the Book of Common Prayer

 

Why does the Anglican Catholic Church use the 1549 BCP and not the 1662?

Thank God for Continental Priests!

I seem to have become part of something larger in my discussion on the Book of Common Prayer. Two brother priests have also reflected on their relationship with the BCP, both Anglican Catholic, but both immersed in different cultures, living on the Continent.

Fr Wassen, with his Eastern Orthodox origins has not had the need to use the Prayer Book itself but rejoices in what the Prayer Book draws out in Missal and Breviary. He disagrees with me about the Benedictine nature of the BCP. Being a Benedictine Oblate myself, I personally find much within the BCP that is Benedictine.

There is the intention and desire for all Psalms to be read as part of our duty to song to God. It seems we can now only manage to do in a month that which our fathers did in a week - I think St Benedict would smile at that. That the Cathedral Offices seem to be a product of Monastic Offices (owing to the close association between cathedral and cloister) seems to be for me, the obvious place where Archbishop Cranmer obtained the material to make this combination of offices. It seems to me to be precisely the same spirituality that we find with St Bede the Venerable.

However, I must confess to having none of the learning that either Fr Wassen nor Fr Chadwick have. I read for my orders and only have the theological training of a CofE Reader, not the great seminary education of many of my brothers. Perhaps I am wrong to see the Benedictine influence in the Book of Common Prayer practically and experientially. But then, I am not the only one to see this influence - it does seem to be widely attested to. This is why I find such happy disagreement so fulfilling. I do learn much, especially since we know that we're all on the same side and have nothing to prove to each other.

Fr Chadwick agrees with me about the need to conform to the Book of Common Prayer without being forced to use it. Again, my ignorance is shocking, especially when it comes to the use of the Sarum Practice. I am of course aware of how the BCP is rooted in Sarum usage: many of the collects are therefrom as well as various liturgical forms. I ought therefore to look more closely at it as, I think its fair to say, I do agree that the Sarum Rite ought to be examined in more detail and adopted more widespread rather than fall into disuse. In many ways, Fr Anthony's description of me being "Roman" is very correct - the old Anglican Papalist is not dead yet - also, my ancestry probably owes more to Normandy than Saxony. However, the Sarum Rite does somewhat uniquely represent a continuity along the fault line of the Reformation. The Gregorian Rite does too and, for me, seems to be present before developing into the Salisbury Usage. Given that my Monastic Community are in extremis in Salisbury, there is another reason for me to check it out with a view to its preservation.

Fr Anthony responds to a comment by Presiding Bishop Robinson of the UECNA, an Old-High Church Protestant who says,

One of the problems one encounters as a Continuing Anglican is that if one actually takes the English Reformation at its word one gets slammed from both directions. The advanced (you could also refer to them as revisionist) sort of Anglo-Catholic generally wants nothing to do with the Articles of Religion or the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which, by the way, is rather at odds with the “Prayer Book Catholic” tradition with which I grew up. On the other hand, the Anglo-Calvinists often try to hammer the 16th century English Reformation into a seventeenth century mould. Neither endeavour is particular successful.

I disagree strongly that, as an Anglican Catholic, I am in any way being "revisionist". History is history, and it seems obvious that the Reformation wasn't a completely Protestant one, but rather the term acquired its meaning even with those whose views were Henrician Catholic so as to distance themselves from Roman Catholicism. One has to ask oneself, "where did the Anglo-Catholics come from?" Yes, there are those who have sought to capitulate to Rome, thereby denying the fullness of their Anglican Catholicism, but that has not been the point. The BCP began somewhere and does not mark the beginning of Anglicanism, so restricting oneself to that view produces a narrow vision of what Anglicanism is.

I certainly do not understand what Bishop Robinson means by "Neither endeavour is particularly successful." The Anglican Catholic Church still exists, is not Roman, and certainly not Protestant in the Continental sense of the word. We are as Protestant as the Eastern Orthodox Churches are, not that many of them would be prepared to admit that! I do agree with a certain Roman Catholic who said that we are called to be faithful rather than successful. I do not see starting with the BCP and using it as a foundation as being an instrument of unity, given that it has not been unifying in its theology, but rather holding different theologies together. I find the Affirmation of St Louis far more of a place to start one's enquiry of "What is Orthodox Anglicanism?" because that narrows the scope to take out the extremes of Roman Catholicism and Calvinism. Once you take the Affirmation of St Louis out of the Continuing Anglican movement, then you become more revisionist than any Anglo-Catholic might be said to be.

It is my hope that I might become a good student of my confraternity in our quest for God, His Righteousness, His Mercy and His Love.

Why I don't use the Book of Common Prayer

The title of this post is likely to put the backs up of many of my fellow Anglican Catholics as well as many of those who identify as Anglican from outside the Continuing Church. I must beg your indulgence. As it is, I heard the following interchange:

A: I use the Anglican Breviary.
B: The only Anglican Breviary is the Book of Common Prayer. Use it.

I found B's response arrogant, blinkered, patronising and unhelpful. It added nothing to the discussion rather than an air of authoritarianism that made me want to reply, "No. I will not use the BCP because of your attitude." As it is, I do not use the Book of Common Prayer for what I believe to be good reason.

I hope that my previous postings have made it clear that I follow the school of thought within Anglican Catholicism which regards the 1549 Book of Common Prayer as the standard of liturgical worship, but subordinate to the doctrine of the Primitive Church as was intended by those who compiled it. I do believe wholeheartedly that the BCP is uniquely Anglican and wholesome for any Christian in their conversation with God. However, the BCP does point outside itself to encourage those who continue the Catholic Faith through the lens of English and Anglophone History to make spiritual progress through Mass, Study, Office and Devotion.

And that's where I sort of come from. My history is entwined with the 1662 BCP. While I make no apology for my Anglican Papalism which came from a parish built on the work of one of the first Bishops to take up the Ordinariate, my choral life was centred around the BCP at Choral Evensong and (occasionally) Choral Mattins. My life at University and having to deal with the lumping-together of Anglican and Free-Church worship meant that I recovered some of my sanity by recourse to the BCP. However, I found it a book that pointed outside itself, as you would expect a book of prayer to do.

However, I discovered that the 1662 BCP is not as full as it should be. The truncated Eucharistic Canon, the truncated hagiography, the desire to hold Catholic teaching with a form of Calvinism, all of these made it difficult for me to continue to just use it for my offices. Couple that with my Benedictine Oblation, and you may perceive that I find a better conversation through the use of the Monastic Diurnal. Yes, it is true that the genius of the BCP is Benedictine. However, that the ferial offices of the Hours doesn't change over the week does make it easier to memorise large chunks of the psalter. I am, like many other Benedictines, able to say the Office of Compline completely from memory which does help after a busy day.

Yet, that is the desire of the BCP, that great chunks of Holy Scripture and tradition get absorbed into the system. I have my daily scripture reading from the lectionary for my study and my Mass is in keeping with the English Translation with the Gregorian Canon following the English Missal which is bound up with the Collects and Readings, and all translations from the Book of Common Prayer of 1549. I baptise using the 1549 Rite which is effectively the old Western Rite.

Essentially, there is a wealth of material that comes from and is consonant with the 1549 Book of Common Prayer which is all consistent with the Catholic Faith that the Church in England received once delivered to the saints. Now, the CofE has their modern liturgical text called "Common Worship" which has so many Eucharistic Prayers, so many rites for this, that and the other. What it lacks is the consistency that the BCP has in how it points beyond itself and allows the Continuing Church to be a truly Broad Church without overstepping the bounds into Liberal and Modernist Heresy.

I recently set myself the task of working one week solely with the 1662 BCP that I grew up with just to see how I would cope with it. While it brought back memories of singing the wonderful alto line in Adrian Batten's Evening Service from the Fourth Service, I found myself up against the brick wall of the Reformation. Anglican Catholicism and I go back further than that. Of course, the material of the Book of Common Prayer does too, but it is so bound up with that turbulent time, and excises so much in the way of the prior Catholic devotion, that I simply could not continue save only in the spirit of its creation.

I hope, then, I have acquitted myself of any charge of despising what is certainly a truly Anglican and beautiful resource, even if I don't use it. I bow to its unifying principle and recognise it in my Offices of Lauds and Vespers. If there are those who will denounce me for not being an Anglican because I don't use it, I remind them that I am not an Anglican - I am an Anglican Catholic and the Anglican Catholic Church accommodates a generous but firm latitude when it comes to Liturgical Worship.

And, again, to B, I say. "No! Sha'n't!"

What a naughty boy I am! ☺

Branching out all over

Having returned to Facebook (for who knows how long), I had to "unfriend" an orthodox priest last night on the grounds of his unpleasant accusations against the ACC. Apparently, I am not in the Church, "Branch Theory" is wrong, and the ACC is a vagans sect with no interest in communion with the Orthodox Church. I really do want to give myself a break from polemics and arguing with people who don't actually want to listen.

"Ah hypocrite!" you say, "you're the one constantly sniping at the CofE. You're just getting what you give out." There may be an element of truth in that - I am very fallible and prone to all kinds of human vices. However, as I said in a comment in a previous post, I belong to the ACC who, while institutionally young, is seeking to preserve the Catholic Faith and is part of the legitimate continuation of that faith from which the CofE has jettisoned itself. Until it succumbed to the incipient Liberalism and Modernism, the Church of England was the Catholic and Orthodox Church in this country.

I agree that it did inherit some elements of Protestantism at the Reformation: it is that Protestantism that allowed the "Enlightenment" to happen with its acceptance of the type of Liberal Criticism (which is also fuelled by a form of cultural Marxist Critical Theory). However, that Protestantism has not compromised the Sacraments however much Rome might complain. The Book of Common Prayer lends itself very well to the doctrine of the Early Church with the possible exception of the filioque and a typical Western over-dependence on St Augustine of Hippo: even then, these can be understood in a thoroughly Patristic manner via St Maximus the Confessor and St Vincent of Lerins in their roles of clarification and putting the brakes on. However, I do believe that the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 does require augmentation. The Thirty-Nine Articles do admit, via the Homilies, of the rejection of the Second Council of Nicaea. This is problematic with the Anglican Catholic understanding of the Catholic Faith being present in the Seven Oecumenical Councils. This is why we first take the authoritative version of the Book of Common Prayer to be that of 1549 with the Ordinal of 1550 (slightly clarified to reduce the confusion about the intention) and then subordinate it to the doctrine of the Early Church, precisely because it was always meant to be conformed to the Early Church, that was the whole idea. The 1549 does not possess the Articles which, in my mind, is a good thing.

Hold on, has the Book of Common Prayer been given a Patristic reading in the Anglican Church? Yes, clearly. One needs only to look at Hooker, Jewell, Taylor, Andrewes, Ken, Donne, and the Caroline Divines to see that, yes the thought of the Church Fathers is present within the Church of England. Contrary to whatever many modern historians, the Church of Rome and the Church of the East may say, there is plenty of cultural evidence to see that the Church of England has been the Church in this country from the earliest times which may, if some sources are to be believed, predate the existence of the Church in Rome.

The Church of Rome and the Church of the East don't want us to see that and will bring up the facts that we sided with Rome in 1054 and the Protestants in the 16th Century to form a new church. However, let us just hold back here a minute. What do they mean by "new church"? What do they mean when they say that the Church of England began in the 16th Century?

What they mean is that in the 1500s, the Church of England changed the Catholic Faith. Given the mention of the great Anglicans above who have been admired by the Churches of Rome and the East, I really do doubt this. I will say that the big failing of the Church of England was to make the Settlement by which Protestants were given the same housing and which has led to the fragmentation of the CofE into evangelical, catholic, liberal and broad wings: a fragmentation which I predict will be formally recognised as the CofE breaks up institutionally in the not too distant future. The Settlement produced a political peace, certainly, but produced a confusion that Rome and the East find hard to comprehend.

There is a lot of scholarship to say why the Church of England always possessed the Catholic Faith and why we in the Continuing Anglican movement have preserved it when the Lambeth Communion failed to do so. I mean this, there is a LOT of scholarship.

So what about the Eastern accusations of us being vagans, uninterested in dialogue with the East, and believing in Branch Theory?

First, yes, we are small, but we have a system of bishops, a constitution, a set of canons, regular synods, and, most importantly of all, the Catholic Faith. We aren't wandering about at all because we are focussed on what the Church has always taught, everywhere. No, we are not in communion with any of the original five patriarchates, but then that is a problem of our history. It isn't as if Rome and the East haven't had their splinters and squabbles, even recently.

Why are we "uninterested in dialogue" with the East? We have to answer, "for the same reason we are not in dialogue with Rome." Both the East and Rome want us to convert. Conversion means a one-sided statement to say that we got things wrong and the other side didn't. It might sound prideful to say it, but we believe we haven't got things wrong for the same reason that they believe they haven't got things wrong. If we believed that we were wrong - we would change. Just because they are bigger does not make the truth any different: if numbers of the living mattered, I am convinced that both Rome and the East would now believe in the same-sex marriage of women priests. If they examine our Anglican Catholic theology closely, they will see that it is the same faith as the Early Church which they hold so dear.

This gives us a justification for the "Branch theory" which neither Rome  nor the East will admit because if they do, their dogma of "we get to say who's in the Church" falls flat. If they admit to Branch theory, then they cannot reject each other as they so do.

We hold the Branch theory on a position of charity because we are prepared to believe that both Rome and the East both are true to the Catholic Faith found in the Primitive Church. We are prepared for dialogue with these Churches on the basis of that faith, not on numbers and not on the behaviour of people with whom we have been in communion and are not now. If we were less charitable, we too would be labelling Rome and the East as schismatic and heretic and thus make any form of rapprochement impossible.

As Anglican Catholics, we do seek unity with like-minded Christians but not at the expense of what we believe. The recent happenings in Atlanta show that we are committed to talking with those who are like-minded and want to heal the rifts of history without requiring each other to admit that they were wrong and we were right. It is interesting to note from pictures of the Joint Synod Mass, the liturgical colour was purple and all those clergy from all jurisdictions wore it. We do and will enter into dialogue, but not if the other party seek our conversion from a faith that we believe is the same as theirs, for to do so would deny Our Lord Christ's work with us and that we would never do.

Personally, a visibly reunited and reconciled Catholic Church would be a dream come true. I love my Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends and know that, while we have our differences, we have respect that our positions require unification at the level of the Holy Ghost Who, I believe, operates still within all the branches of this tree. However, I really don't want to hear the same, tired old polemics from those who want to demonstrate their (false) doctrinal superiority over us in their claim to be the One True Church. If you want to engage with us, do so in humility and charity and we will do the same.

And what of the modernists and liberals? What about dialogue with them? Does the ACC have a doctrinal superiority over them? Am I being hypocritical in my desire to see Rome, East, and (Continuing) Anglican as being the only branches of the tree?

Again, we have to go back to the Catholic Faith. Rome, East and Orthodox Anglicans hold to the doctrine of the Primitive Church - that is each of our claims, and each of us will demonstrate it. However, the modernist and liberals hold to a source of faith greater than the Primitive Church - it's called progress by which they reinterpret or condemn that which the Church has always held to be true. They claim this moral superiority over us; they accuse us of being backward, retrograde, politically incorrect and uncharitable based upon this new morality which does not have its basis in the very tenets of Christianity except eisegetically. If they are a branch of the tree, then it is a branch that has cut itself off from the very substance that it grew from.

Are the branches of the tree doctrinally superior to modernists and liberals? That's not actually the question. The question really is, is the Christianity of moderns and liberals the same as that of the Primitive Church? Rome, East and Orthodox Anglican will say theirs is and demonstrate it. Moderns and liberals will show why theirs is superior.

This is why it is too early to dialogue with the modernist church, but, if their theology is always of the present age, then it will probably always be too early.

Is this a Continuing Anglican blog or not?

My life is about to get more splendidly complicated, but it gives me thought about just how far I have come over the eleven-and-a-bit years of blogging. It is remarkable that I have now been in the Anglican Catholic Church for more than half my bloglife. This can probably be considered a Continuing Anglican blogling now.

For the first half of my bloglife, I was developing as a progressively more ultramontane Anglican Papalist and defending the existence of the Anglican Papalism that, for me, came out of the logical progression of Anglo-Catholicism. While I was in this state, I could not consider the Continuing Anglican movement as being an option. To me, it was an American phenomenon of a fissiparous nature. However, as I reflect more on things, it was my engagement with these Continuing Anglicans that gave me great encouragement and support. It was precisely this support that enabled me to stand up to the Church of England and especially to Mrs Rural Dean who was the architect of my departure, and say "no more!"

Continuing Anglicanism is still a hotch-potch of little churches which can be swayed by larger-than-life characters. I have met some very passionate, eccentric, and caustic individuals - some who have at times been thoroughly unpleasant. I have also met some extraordinary Anglicans who have subsequently become Roman Catholics through the Ordinariate - indeed I have had some very pleasant discussion with one of the people involved whose kindness to me was of such great value. The one thing that I have consistently found in the people whom I have met is a deep seated authenticity and self-consistency. Those who were Ordinariate-bound I did question how they were capable of seeing their orders as null and void: they found their reasons with which I couldn't agree, but I could agree that this was something that was consistent within themselves. What I found with these Continuing Anglicans were people with the strength of character to leave that which is established, socially acceptable, and "nice" for the way that is true but out in the wilderness away from the approval of society.

That was the pull.

But I have received pushes. There were pushes from the CofE who saw me as an obstacle to getting their own way with the parish I left: once I was gone, they seem to have suddenly been able to "ordain" a woman in that church - a woman "deacon" whom I was told never wanted to be a priest.

I could have gone to Rome. I was pushed away from that too. I found myself repulsed by the smugness of the cradle Romans who looked down on converts. I found myself repulsed by the smugness of converts who looked down on the place whence they had came seeing nothing but the pig-sty from which they themselves had been seeking to eat the husks. I found this hierarchy of smugness quite intolerable. Indeed, my confrere, Fr Anthony Chadwick seems to be battling precisely the type of smug individual who actually drives people away from communion with the Holy See. Such individuals will say that I'm just being too precious. I wonder if they would say that to the others whom their attitude has pushed away, but then, it's not their problem is it? Evangelism is always someone else's problem.

"Ah!" they will say, "you're a recent convert. Look at the way that you've vilified the CofE! You push people away with your attitude, too!"

Perhaps I do - to my shame. I know that I have lost friends in trying to put my case across too strongly. My deep problem is that I don't actually hate the CofE: I hate the ideology that has infected her. I see her like some great oak dying of some horrible blight seeing still lush green branches with acorns, yet seeing others wither, moulder and drop off.

It is because I love her that I became a Continuing Anglican, though as my Archbishop will warn, by "Anglican" I mean an adjective describing my heritage and qualifying my approach to the Catholic Faith. If the See of Canterbury is the blighted oak, then the Continuing Anglican movement is a group of little cuttings seeking to grow hopefully having escaped the blight. Still other cuttings seem to be wanting to grow, but they are multiplying difficulties, cutting themselves of for the wrong reasons and are probably still infected with that blight. It is really better for disaffected Anglicans to find sanctuary within the original Continuing Anglican movement: our cutting seems to have taken and is established.

To all those who do want to make a change to traditional Anglican belief, I offer an invitation to check us out and look beyond our size to see our vision. We pray that it is part of the Vision Glorious!

Can there any good thing come out of America?

1001

One thing that I have been asked is, "why do you belong to an American Church?" Of course, I answer that I don't as the Catholic Church doesn't have international boundaries - it is One, a single family united in Christ.

What does the question mean?

It seems a little unfair to my American friends, both within the ACC and without, that the question seems to be asked either dismissively of America, or that somehow I have lost my "Englishness" by joining a Church which does indeed have its organisational origin in St Louis, Missouri in the United States. There is some suspicion here, and it seems that my interrogators are like dear old Nathanael: can any good thing come out of America?

There is a certain reputation that religious bodies that come from America are a bit "loopy" for want of a better word. We now have both Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons in this country imported from the U.S., and their door-knocking antics coupled with the toothy grin and wide eyes have certainly raised the British eyebrow: it is not the done thing. Of course, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are not Christian because they are not Trinitarian - they have rejected the teaching of the Catholic Church in favour of their additions and dubious Biblical scholarship. Yet there have been some "Christian" cults, and I do hear of terrible stories of those who have been subjected to some grotesque forms of social conditioning all for the "love of God". This is where the idea of "cult" comes in.

The word "cult" has a rather vague meaning and one which sociologists haven't quite agreed upon; indeed the popular and academic definitions are somewhat different. Of course, in this context, it is the popular definition that we need to address here. It seems that this popular idea is that a cult is a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members. It seems that the British idea of American religion is bound up with cults like the Branch Davidian group led by David Koresh which was a breakaway group from the Seventh Day Adventists. If this is what British people think of when they think of American Religion, then that's a little bit racist against Americans, isn't it?

Certainly it upholds a stereotype of Americans being a bit overboard in their religion. They have enthusiasm for a country that they have built for themselves; they invest more into their religion than we do; they have forged their own identity via the Constitution and, as a result of that Constitution, they cannot have a National Church. The religious American is certainly more committed to their religion. I think that's a rather wonderful thing, and one that we could do well to remember. The typical lukewarm CofE member only generally invests in the CofE by taxes and by sprinkling loose change into the collection plate. The CofE members that I've seen in my time certainly do not want to be more involved than turning up on a Sunday morning for some nice hymns, a nice little talk by the vicar, a nice little bit of bread and wine, and then some nice coffee afterwards. Or perhaps, am I perpetuating another stereotype?  If we perpetuate the stereotype of the rabid American religious nut, then surely this gives license for the perpetuation of the anodyne, pew-warming Briton. Certainly British coffee could learn a thing or two from that Stateside. We definitely do better tea, though!

If that is not what the question means by being part of an "American Church", then what can it mean? Does it mean that an "English Church" is not good enough for me? Well, let me see. I use the English Missal and the English Hymnal which have English origins: some of my confraternity use the English Office. I conform to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer which is the basis of the 1662 BCP used (occasionally) in the CofE. Our Bishop is the president of his local Constitutional Monarchy Association. In the American part of the ACC, they use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer which is theirs and they love it passionately! The Diocese of the UK is very different from the Dioceses in the United States but is still no less a part of the ACC. If the ACC is an American Church, then the Roman Catholic Church is an Italian Church. I have not been required to salute the Stars and Stripes, nor to swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. As far as I'm concerned, it's "God save the Queen" not "My country, 'tis of thee" even if I am not a supporter of the British Monarchy.

Thus, the question does not really make any sense beyond a superficial stereotyping of religion in the United States. The Church is the Church is the Church wherever it is. The ACC in this Diocese is a British Church because it is here in Britain. We do have parishes and missions in Wales and our Bishop has been given oversight of a couple of Chaplaincies on the Continent run by Fr Chadwick in France, and Fr Wassen in the Netherlands. Given that we have to maintain our own parishes, find our own buildings, rely on the investment of our congregations, that is how we follow the American model, but then other Christian bodies have to do so too. The Methodists certainly had to way back when. I suppose they were regarded as being a bit alien too, and dismissed as a cult.

Does the ACC fall into the popular definition of cult?

It is true to say that we're small worldwide, and tiny in this country. We're also rather strange bunch of people in that we have demonstrated a passion for our faith that many, perhaps, would regard as unEnglish. Yet, all our liturgical practices have been part of the CofE of old time. We don't do anything that hasn't already been done in the CofE before it went off the rails. We really cannot be accused of "strange practices" if we're doing what Anglo-Catholics in the CofE have done and still do.

Do we impose excessive control over our members? I hope that I have demonstrated that we don't already on this little blogling. Love demands consent, and there can be no consent without free-will. The ACC continues to regard as sin things which are only lately accepted as "not sinful" by Society and the churches which deform with Society. Sin doesn't get decided by society; Sin comes from separating ourselves from the Eternal God. If He does not change, then neither does what separates us from Him! Yet, all sin is done away by Christ - the repentant Christian will find a ready absolution and forgiveness at His Blessed hands. People are free to join and leave the ACC as they wish. Stay or go, the hand of friendship is always open to them, and if it is not, then the love of Christ is not being displayed in our hands and this needs to be addressed sharpish!

The ACC counts Anglicanism as its heritage and that heritage starts here in Britain having arrived from Jerusalem on Imperial Ships. The Americans and the British share this and we keep it as best we can given the divergence in our histories since we lost the Colonies in the Eighteenth Century. That's history. It's what we do with it that matters and we should learn from each other, taking on board the piety that we admire in the other. The intention of the ACC is to continue the Catholic Faith in the light of our Anglican heritage, both indigenous and colonial, so that we can be in union with that little first century Nazarene gentleman who turns out to be God. Blessed be Jesus Christ forever on both sides of the Atlantic!

The Checks and Balances of being Anglican

As I've said before,  I am not an Anglican. However, I am Anglican. Linguists will notice the difference immediately, but I hope everyone sees how I now regard myself after six years of being outside the CofE, and nearly six years of being in the Anglican Catholic Church.

The distinction is subtle and, perhaps, one of the causes as to why people-who-are-Anglican and Anglicans often talk past each other.

My detractors will say, "how on Earth can this fool dare to call himself Anglican?"

They have a point. I don't subscribe to the doctrine inherent in the Book of Common Prayer, I see the XXXIX Articles as something of an irrelevance, I hold to Transubstantiation, and see Archbishop Cranmer as just plain wrong. (Yes, I know that technically makes me regard Cranmer as heretical, but he is my very best favourite heretic!) In fact, I do not use the Book of Common Prayer at all. I say my Offices from the Monastic Breviary, and the Mass from the English Missal. Just how can I even use "Anglican" as an adjective, let alone a noun?

One of the big concessions that I made in moving from the CofE to the ACC was dropping Latin. While I was in the CofE, I was reacting, at first ignorantly, against the Liberal Agenda,  and bounced too far into Ultramontane Anglican Papalism. I used Latin more in my private devotions. I could still use Latin, like Fr Anthony in the Sarum Rite, but one of the things that I have found important for the sake of commonality is the use of English.

Further, my Breviary and Missal are conformed not only to English, but to the English translation in the BCP. Indeed, this consonance with the BCP is, in my view, the genius of what Cranmer really did in compiling the BCP, and what makes the idea of Anglican clear as an adjective and as a potentially unifying concept.

It may not seem it, but the ACC is actually a broad Church with the BCP at the heart of its liturgy, but with the Primitive Church as the Doctrinal Authority. This allows for checks and balances to be made and thus prevent priests from going too far and turning personal foibles into full blown heresies.

Even if it isn't used explicitly, there is a true Commonality in the BCP that does actually bind us. I am so heartened by the joint Synods of Continuing Anglican jurisdictions being held this Autumn. We can come together because the things we value can all be found within the BCP. We free ourselves from individual personalities and back onto an ideology which unites us. This was something that we lost when some Bishops in the ACC tried to expunge the whole notion of Anglicanism and left Continuing Anglicanism in the 1990s.

The Roman Catholic Church has its ideology and thus its notion of regularity bound up with the Holy Father and the Magisterium which has developed around him. The various Orthodox Churches have their ideology coloured by their indigenous culture. This is why the ACC, and indeed certain other Catholic bodies in the UK, have a good claim to be part of the English Orthodox Church. We have a history which shows how far we can go before losing our identity and ideology as Catholics and the BCP comes out of that history but does not wholly define it.

Our historical notion of Anglicanism as an adjective allows us to know where we are by looking at the presence of Christ in our history and seeing Him at work, preventing us from becoming Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Russia Orthodox, when we are not.

In our history,  we have the faith delivered in the first centuries by those using Roman trade routes. We were then reminded that, though we are an island, our faith is not at the Synod of Whitby and then with the Germanic and French conquests which brought us in line with the Western Patriarchy but never so much as to take the Papacy with the gravity of the Continent. At the Reformation, we not only finally shrugged off a Papacy which had accrued too much political power, but also refused to take on board fully the innovations of the Continental Reformers, while preserving a Catholic element from which would eventually spring the Caroline Divines, the High Churchmen, and the Tractarians.

At each stage, the history of Anglicanism prevents us from deviating from the first Millennium and the Catholic Faith therein while connecting with the people of the day.

The BCP is an expression of our ideology, but not the centre of Anglican Catholic ideology. This way we don't wake up Calvinist one morning and Glagolitic the next. There is liturgical stability built into the BCP which still allows some flexibility, but not enough to change things so radically as to be unrecognisable and thus inconsistent with our historic selves.

But is this identity important? Aren't we told to decrease so that Christ may increase? Of course we should. Our lives as individuals and as Churches are in full submission to His Authority. Yet our call is to reach out to those outside the Church and bring them God's grace in a way they can understand. The identity of an indigenous people is bound up in their history, and thus the way we preach the Gospel and dispense the grace God gives us all must be consonant with that history for their benefit.

You can be sure that if you step into any ACC parish, you will know where you are in the liturgy. You will hear the same prayers made and the same praises offered. You might hear the Te Deum sung at a BCP Mattins, or at a Benedictine recitation of the Office of Readings. Either way, it will still begin, "We praise Thee, O Lord." Thus you can be comforted that whatever liturgy is being used, it is being directed to the same God by Anglicans and people-who-are-Anglican around the world. Our liturgy does not chop and change every week, nor from parish to parish. That way Anglican Catholics are indeed visibly united in our Church lives,  and united with so many other Continuing Anglicans too.

Long may this Commonality continue in the love of Christ and bring us together in Him. May God richly bless the Synods this October and all who are involved that we are all together one in Him. 

Collecting Collects: Reviewing the year's collection

I have tried to give a reflection on each of the collects for the Sundays over the past year. Time rather forbade me from reflecting on more of the Saints' days and other places where the Prayer book gives a collect. My intention has been to demonstrate the richness of the prayers that we say at Mass and in our daily offices that carries over the time of the Reformation.


Whether or not one subscribes to the doctrine that emerged in the Church after the Reformation, one is always faced with the pain that those who prayed these collects faced. Their prayers sought God with tears, sweat and blood even as Our Lord's did in the Garden of Gethsemane on that fateful evening. While our blood, sweat and tears do not save us in themselves, it is our love for God that produces them which brings us face to face with Christ in whose sufferings we participate.


Prayer has to be hard work. We have to face the pain of our separation from God without the numbing effects of daily life and its distractions. We are fallen, but none of us is irredeemable. Our purgatory is real and necessary for us to be transformed into beings of light. Our Collects teach us about this struggle: the need to find the light, the need to follow God, the need to look to Him in the hours of darkness; the need to seek to be part of His family the Church. We pray with Gervasius, Pope St Gregory and with Archbishop Cranmer who sought to render their words into English.


These Collects do go across denominational divides and have the power to unite us if we appreciate that they can be given nuances. Even if we cannot agree on the accuracy of the variety of translations from the Latin, we need to remember that, in most Offices, the collect is preceded by the Lord's prayer which does unite Christians. If we take our time praying the Lord's Prayer rather than gabbling it through, we can actually savour the words of Our Lord Himself. These words will sanctify our prayer if we allow them and allow us to pray our collects with greater sincerity, unity and with a greater sense of their catholicity.


It is the purpose of these collects to gather us together in a singleness of intention to which the Church can testify to a darkening world. Let us then allow ourselves to be collected and raised up in our prayers to the throne of God to stand with the saints and worship Him with them.

Collect for the Sunday next before Advent

Latin Collect
EXCITA, quæsumus Domine, tuorum fidelium voluntates ut divini operis fructum propensius exequentes, pietatis tuæ præmia majora percipiant. Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.

[My translation: Stir up, we beseech Thee O Lord, the wills of Thy faithful people that pursuing the fruit of the work of God more eagerly, they may know the greater reward of Thy kindness. Through Jesus Christ...]

Prayer book of 1549
STIERE [Stir] up we beseche thee, O Lord, the wylles of thy faythfull people, that they, plenteously bringing furth the fruite of good workes; may of thee, be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christe our Lorde. Amen.

Reflection
Things will get better. Christians always have that hope and often that hope is offensive to those who perceive it to be a glib lack of recognition of the trauma and pain of living. Looking out into a world which is becoming politically darker now since it has wandered into the realms of spiritual night, it is easy to think that such a hope cannot be anything other than futile - offensively futile.

As we pray this last collect of the liturgical year, we find the Sun's rays darkened by clouds and curtailed by the inclination of the Earth's axis. Light begins to fail again - at least it seems that way. We become sleepy and forlorn. Yet, we recognise it and seek to be released from spiritual torpor and oppression. The only way to walk during the darkness is to walk in the light of God, seeking Him in the things around us and by doing those things that He wants us to do. We are to do that one Divine work that we can; we are to spread the light through struggle and hardship, pain, loss and humiliation and in them find ourselves ever more enlightened by God Himself.

What we have of God now is a tiny, finite fraction of what He promises us. There is a greater good beyond this world which will make our pain worth every drop of blood. For every tiny child that dies through the cruelty of man or the indifference of Nature, there is an existence in which that little one does and will shine more brightly than a supernova.

The world will always turn away from the Light and in doing so,it will forget God. We will not.

Collect for the twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity

Latin collect from the Sarum Missal
Absolve quesumus domine tuorum delicta populorum. et a peccatorum nostrorum nexibus quae pro nostra fragilitate contraximus tua benignitate liberemur.


[My translation: Absolve, we beseech Thee O Lord, the failings of Thy people and, from the bonds of our sins which we have wrought according to our frailty, free us by Thy goodness...]


Prayer book of 1549
LORD we beseche thee, assoyle [absolve] thy people from their offences, that through thy bountiful goodnes we maye bee delyvered from the handes of all those synnes, whiche by our frayltye we have committed : Graunt this, et c.
 

Prayer book of 1662
O LORD, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their offences; that through thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the bands of those sins, which by our frailty we have committed: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.


Reflection
One of the most famous ghost stories has to be Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and in this clever little book we have the dreadful image of Jacob Marley doomed to spend undefined ages wandering the earth in chains that he has made for himself, link by link, through his meanness and unscrupulous money-lending. Dickens' point is very clear: we human beings are the authors of our own misery because we fail to see the simple delights of goodness.


Ebenezer Scrooge, himself, is the victim of neglect and abuse from his childhood and, despite the simple joys of being in employment with the jolly Mr Fezziwig, allows the hurts of his history to nurture demons of self-interest, grasping and avarice.


Like Scrooge, we walk with the scars of the failings of those around us, their injustices branded upon our memories and, even our bodies. We are justified in being angered by injustice, especially when it is against us. Yet, if we want to recover the true joy of live and of living, we have somehow to let go of that injury; we somehow have to allow it to have happened; we have to forgive even as we are forgiven. Only then can we be forgiven for the hurts we have wrought others.


For man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. By grasping the hand of God, we are pulled together and out of darkness. It is He that looses us from these chains so that we do not carry them around with us. We still have to let those chains drop, though.

Collect for the twenty-third Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
DEUS, nostrum refugium et virtus, adesto piis ecclesiæ tuæ precibus, auctor ipse pietatis, et præsta, ut quod fideliter petimus, efficaciter consequamur. Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.



[My translation: God, our refuge and strength, be present to the pious prayers of Thy Church, O Author of piety itself, and grant that what we seek faithfully we may obtain effectively. Through...]

Prayer book of 1549
GOD, our refuge and strength, which art the author of all godlines, be ready to heare the devoute prayers of thy churche; and graunt that those thynges which we aske faithfully we maye obteine effectually; through Jesu Christe our lorde. Amen.


Reflection
God is Love, as St John tells us. This means that what is truly meant by Love is God. To seek the presence of God for the sake of God is what it means to love God. Likewise, to be pious is to seek truly the cause of piety, i.e. to strive to hear the word that God speaks in the heart of men. The way we are to live is defined in the very being of God. Just as God is separate from His Creation, we are to seek that which is beyond what is created.


This is impossible for us as our fleeting little lives flare up so briefly in the span of the ages, like a match lit in the darkness. With God, however, all things are possible. He is our refuge and strength in our struggle to embrace being created and to embrace that which is not created. Creation separated from God is doomed to pass away and those who would try to drag us away from the Divine are many in number. We Christians do have enemies: we must not forget that! Those enemies prowl around us, infiltrating us at the most intimate levels because of our frailty and weakness. We are deceived into hating people who possess exactly the same frail nature as we do.


In God's love do we find refuge from this hatred, because there can be no hatred in God. All hatred necessarily separates from God because it seeks that which is not God. This is why we are in danger of being torn to pieces. Yet we have the spirit of God dwelling in us by our baptism and so we can never be torn apart unless we let go of Him. When we shall stand before God face-to-face, battered and torn from our battle against His enemies, we shall then receive true completeness just by being with Him.

Collect for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect from the missal of Leofric
Familiam tuam, quaesumus, domine, continua pietate custodi, ut a cunctis adversitatibus, te protegente, sit libera, et in bonis actibus tuo nomini sit devota. Per

[My Translation: O Lord, we beseech Thee to guard Thy family with continual piety, that with Thy protection, it may be free from every adversity and be devoted to Thy name in good works. Through...]

Prayer pook of 1549
LORDE we beseche thee to kepe thy housholde the churche in continuall godlines; that throughe thy proteccion it maye be free from al adversities, and devoutly geven to serve thee in good workes, to the glory of thy name; Through Jesus Christ our Lorde. Amen.

Reflection
The word "household" has slightly changed its meaning. It seems to be a colder, more clinical way to speak of one's home environment and the people with whom we share that environment. "Household" speaks of the people and their functions. In former days, this meant servants and even slaves in addition to the "family ", the people who were served.

Yet, a household should mean a community living in one house, each playing a valued part in the maintenance of that community. No-one in that house should be seen as a means to an end but have a value in themselves.

We, the Church, have not been great at this. We are "with schisms rent asunder and heresies oppress'd". Yet God is part of our household however we may try to exclude Him, and the Church is His household for that is the root of the word "Church". When we pray this prayer, we pray for the Church's integrity as a household even as God is a household in Himself as a single being in a Trinity of persons. We Christians cannot be part of a household and not part of a family.

Collect for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

Prayer book of 1662
GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
This collect is used in place of the absolution when a layperson leads the Office and it is clear why this is so. In order to repent of our sins, we must first know that we have sinned and then it must trouble us. We cannot repent of our actions if it does not cause us grief that we did them in the first place. That grief can be perfect in that we grieve for offending God, or it can be imperfect if we fear the consequences of our actions. Nonetheless, if we are not troubled by our sins then we are simply not repenting properly.


We pray this collect for the complete removal of our sin so that our minds can be still again and focus on the task of living a life of service to God's will. The Devil will often trouble us by bringing up past sins, sins that we regret having done, of which we have confessed, and from which we are making amendment of life - that is what it means to repent. This is one of the Devils wicked tricks against the people of God. Yes, repentance is a life-long activity and it is with God's grace that we do repent beyond just an intention. However, God has promised that repenting of our sins and living a new life in Christ Who has opened the gateway from imprisonment to sin will bring us to Eternal life with Him.


Thus, we also pray this prayer when we are troubled by past sins so that remembering them spurs us on towards God and His mercy. The Devil may say that our sin is still with us, yet we know that we are dead to sin in Christ and live to God. That sin is still with us, but only with our corpse, not with our risen selves. We should take courage when the Devil torments us with the past. If we are truly repenting, then it shows that we really do care what God thinks and, further, makes His love for us ever more real.

Collect for the twentieth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
OMNIPOTENS et misericors Deus, universa nobis adversantia propitiatus exclude, ut mente et corpore pariter expediti, quæ tua sunt, liberis mentibus exsequamur, Per Christum Dominum nostrum . . . Amen.

[My Translation:Almighty and Merciful God, mercifully shut out from us all things that are turned against us, that with mind and body equally prepared, we may perform those things which are Thine with free minds. Through... ]

Prayer book of 1549
ALMIGHTIE and merciful God, of thy bountiful goodnes, kepe us from all thynges that maye hurte us; that we, beyng ready bothe in body and soule, maye with free heartes accomplishe those thynges that thou wouldest have doen; Through Jesus Christ our Lorde.

Prayer book of 1662
O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
The Latin and the collect of 1549 emphasise the freedom of our minds to choose to do the will of God. For us to be able to make that choice we need God to show us that choice, and this means Him cutting through the various sounds, sights and sensations that bombard us every day. The Devil likes to throw all that He can at us so that we might be turned away from God.

Yet the mercy and the grace of God is always within us, we just have to be prepared to see them. This means having faith in God and allowing that faith to grow and prepare our hearts and minds to see whatever is right, noble, true and loving. If our hearts are free to choose God then we find good cheer at our liberation by God and live lives more fully Christ-like.

Collect for the nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
DIRIGAT corda nostra, quæsumus Domine, tuæ miserationis operatio : quia tibi sine te placere non possumus. Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum . . . Amen.

[My translation: Direct our hearts, we beseech Thee O Lord, by the operation of thy mercy: for without Thee we are not able to please Thee. Through Jesus Christ]

Prayer book of 1549 O GOD, for asmuche as without thee, we are not able to please thee; Graunte that the workyng of thy mercie maye in all thynges directe and rule our heartes; Through Jesus Christ our Lorde.

Prayer book of 1662
O GOD, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
It seems to go without saying that, if God did not exist, we certainly could not please Him. However, the word "without" stands diametrically opposed to "within". In order to please God, we must be in with God. This puts a new spin on an old idea. God actually rejoices at our presence and is not pleased when we are away from Him. He does not need our presence, but rejoices in it.

It is our sin that makes us walk without God, and it is by His mercy working in us - operating in us - that we have our route back to Him. We walk through the wounds in Christ. We enter into the hoes in His hands and His side, like St Thomas. In so doing we find ourselves within God, participating in Him being Him. We take our being from God and, if our being stands apart from God, then we become nothing.

The mercy of God does indeed operate through the Holy Ghost as the modification of the 1662 collect does point out. The Holy Trinity are all involved in our existence, in our redemption and in our reunion with God. Their different personalities interact and even dance around us so that we might simply become and remain with God. We need God to show us those dance steps.

Collect for the eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
DA, quæsumus Domine, populo tuo diabolica vitare contagia, et te solum verum Deum pura mente sectari, Per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.
[My translation: Grant, we beseech Thee O Lord, Thy people to avoid the infection of the Devil and to follow Thee the only true God with pure mind. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord ]

Prayer book of 1549
LORDE we beseche thee, graunt thy people grace to avoyde the infeccions of the Devil, and with pure harte and mynde to folowe thee the onelye God; Through Jesus Christ our Lorde.

Prayer book of 1662
LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
We notice that the prayer book of 1549 closely follows the Latin Collect and sees the work of the Devil as an infection that draws mankind from the health that God intended. We are sick and infected with a dangerous separation from God. We wander in the half-light bearing both light and darkness in our very selves, with the Devil seeking to extinguish it with his own brand of light.

This diabolical desire is fleshed out in the collect of 1662 in which the means and sources of infection are revealed, namely through temptation by the world, the flesh and the Devil. The world around us distracts us, the pain of our mortal limitations depresses us, and the final lie that Evil can triumph over Good causes us to fall away into darkness. This is the light that fizzles like some neon sign that crackles before finally going out.

Yet God is righteous, and His righteousness is unmistakable to those who seek Him. No matter how the Devil tries, and his neon light may blind like the sun, his efforts will not penetrate or fool the pure and humble heart seeking earnestly for its creator. We pray this prayer that we may indeed be purified by the burning goodness of God and find our rest in Him away from the infection of the deceit and lies that can kill both body and soul.

Collect for the seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Prayer book of 1549
LORD we praye thee that thy grace maye alwayes prevente and folowe us, and make us continuallye to be geven to all good workes thorough Jesus Christe our Lorde.

Reflection
Again, we see that words change their meaning over time. These days, we tend to think of preventing meaning to stop something happening. The word actually means "to go before" and if you think of the soldiers heading the enemy off at the pass, then you can see how the word prevent has got its now negative meaning.

Yet we pray for the grace of God to go before us and to follow us. We  are praying, therefore, for a complete surrounding of our lives with the grace of God, yet not so that we can be protected from Evil happening to us, but rather protected from doing Evil things. If Evil is the hole in our being which prevents us from being full, then our actions carry those same holes as a lack of goodness.

With God's grace surrounding our lives, the Evil in our actions and the Evil within our substance are prevented from proliferating, though we have to look with the eyes of faith to see that happening. This is difficult when sometimes we can see nothing but the darkness of Evil. Part of God's grace is to live lives of trust in Him that, even when we cannot see any good whatsoever, we can find some assurance that His goodness will envelop us even to Eternity.

Collect for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
ECCLESIAM tuam, Domine, miseratio continuata mundet et muniat; et quia sine te non potest salva consistere, tuo semper munere gubernetur. Per Jesum Christum.

[My translation: May continual mercy cleanse and defend Thy Church, O Lord; and, because without Thee She cannot continue safe, may She always be directed by Thy grace. Through Jesus Christ.]

Prayer book of 1549
LORD, we beseche thee, let thy continual pitie clense and defende thy congregacion; and, because it cannot continue in safetie without thy succoure, preserve it evermore by thy helpe and goodnes; through Jesus Christ our Lorde.

Reflection
Again, we see Archbishop Cranmer tidying up the Latin so that its sense may be rendered more naturally in English, The sentiments are, as we have often found throughout the year, in accord with Pre-Reformation thinking. In effect what Cranmer does to the language is what we pray will happen to the Church when we pray this collect.

There are times when we feel that our lives don't quite make sense, and translating our perceptions to other people is difficult, nigh on impossible. We simply cannot communicate our pain and suffering in a way that does justice to how we feel. We know that our lives need sorting out; we also have faith that God will sort out our lives for us; however, we find out that our lives just don't get sorted out in the way we anticipate, Somehow our own lives get tangled up in translation in the world.

The mercy of God is that our lives do get cleaned up and sorted out. It is He who rids us of the lasting consequences of our sinfulness, though that sinfulness still does knot up our existence in Time. We can still trust in Him for direction even when we cannot see where we are going. We need to be full of faith and feel for His guiding grace that will draw His Church into the daylight.

Collect for the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
CUSTODI, Domine, quaesumus, Ecclesiam tuam propitatione perpetua: et quia sine te labitur humana mortalitas, tuis semper auxiliis et abstrahatur a noxiis, et ad salutaria dirigatur. Per Dominum

[My translation: Keep, O Lord, we beseech Thee, Thy Church by Thy perpetual mercy: and, because human mortality falls without Thee, always by Thy help both draw us from things hurtful and direct us to things beneficial. Through...]

Prayer book of 1549
KEPE we beseche thee, O Lorde, thy Churche with thy perpetuall mercye: and because the frailtie of man without thee, cannot but fall: Kepe us ever by thy helpe, and leade us to al thynges profitable to our salvacion; through Jesus Christe our Lorde. Amen.

Prayer book of 1662
KEEP, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy: and, because the frailty of man without thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reflection
Archbishop Cranmer always has the question of our salvation in his mind as he translates this collect from the Gelasian Sacramentary. Anything that is not drawing us to that salvation is automatically harmful to us: Archbishop Cranmer doesn't want us even to consider things which are not bringing us to our end in God. Is this why, perhaps, he omits translating abstrahuntur a noxiis?

It is by God's mercy that we are drawn from our sins and that this is a continued process. When we fail to consider God, we fall; we cry out to Him and He saves us. The story of Israel is repeated again and again in our lives, all because of human inability to keep God's moral law. Sin, the World and the Devil cling close drawing our fragile wills back and our repentance permits God to draw us out. The cycle of sin-fall-repent-rise is part of our being in Time. On the fabric of Eternity, our lives look like some oscillating wave crying out for an end and for constancy in God.

Archbishop Cranmer's long term view is the knowledge that God will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy. Since Christ comes not to condemn but to save the world, that single sacrifice also written across the fabric of Eternity is enough to draw anyone who chooses to follow Him out of this cycle and into eternal joy.

Collect for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Latin Collect
OMNIPOTENS sempiterne Deus, da nobis fidei, spei et caritatis incrementum : et ut mereamur assequi quod promittis, fac nos amare quod præcipis. Per Jesum Christum

[My translation: Almighty and Everlasting God, grant us increase of faith, hope, and charity: and that we may merit to obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou doest command. Through Jesus Christ.]

Prayer book of 1549
ALMIGHTYE and everlastyng God, geve unto us the increase of faythe, hope, and charitie; and that we may obteine that whiche thou doest promise; make us to love that whiche thou doest commaunde, through Jesus Christe our Lorde.

Reflection
We notice that Archbishop Cranmer effectively removes the word mereamur from the English Collect. In so doing, he creates a tension. Many folk interpret Cranmer as believing that we deserve nothing from God and can never deserve anything because of our sin. In his own words of confession, we are "miserable sinners" The word "miserable" here is not a statement of emotion, though it has a very emotive nuance. We are miserable sinners in the sense that our sins cause misery. Our sins separate us from God and prevent us from the fullness of His presence in our lives.

Is it true, then, that we deserve nothing from God? After all, we have no legal standing on which to claim entitlement from God. He makes the rules, and this means we cannot go to God and claim a seat in Heaven for any reason of our actions. That belief would be Pelagianism. However, it is not our actions that make us worthy of entrance into Heaven - it is God's actions.

All good works begin with God, and the life that is united with God - that wonderful state of grace - produces work that deserves merit. The collect that we pray here is asking for the God-given ability to be faithful, hopeful, and loving so that we may deserve the promises of God. Indeed, we have no entitlement with God, but God's grace in our lives entitles itself to more grace - grace upon grace. Like a magnet magnetises everything it sticks to, so God's grace makes worthy of grave everthing it touches. For the repentant sinner, merit is freely available from God's love, first through Baptism then through the other sacraments, especially Confirmation and Confession whereby this grace is first strengthened and then renewed.

Our sins may cause our misery, but our love of God and adherence to His Will will allow His grace to cause our joy, and that joy will indeed be everlasting.